Attritors of the aforedescribed type referred to generally as attrition mills, are widely used for the finest milling of solids. They are particularly suitable for the comminution of hard materials like Ti--Co, VC--Co, WC--Co, SiC--steel and the finest milling of more complex hard materials like Ti--WC--Co, Ta--WC--Co, TiC--WC--Co and the like.
Preferably the attritor is utilized for the production of extremely fine powders of permanent magnet materials like Nd--Fe--B and the production of other mechanical alloys. These and similar hard materials are generally comminuted into powders in the nanometer particle size range with especially sensitive materials being handled under vacuum or a protective gas.
Attritors of the aforedescribed type generally have an upright configuration whereby the milling vessel and the rotor have a common vertical axis. With this type of conventional construction there is only a limited transfer of energy between the rotor and the milling body filling, especially with dry milling. Because of the limited energy transfer, the vessel cannot be made particularly compact and the milling apparatus is generally quite bulky.